TCAF was such a great time! I wanted to blog about it, but it’s already stupid late as I finally get this page coloured and ready to post so I’m going to have to get that done later. Thank you to all who came by to say hello, to purchase some books or some buttons, or even to just pick up a flyer. (Welcome to all you new readers!) Great show, but exhausting. Zzzz.

Discussion (47) ¬

This page broke my heart, really. I like Fusella – a LOT – but here I get a serious impression that she is, for possibly the first time in her life, out of her depth.

Up until now, the biggest threats Fu has dealt with have been bureaucratic in nature – TerSA’s “campaign of active neglect”, followed by IP essentially taking over her ship for a “short test”. Only the test didn’t turn out to be short. Her crew has been operating without the needed support for the tasks asked of them, her SCT members – all of whom are friends – have been endangered, injured, infected (heck, we STILL don’t know how Aria is faring). Fusella’s gone through this with the same stubborn attitude she’s used – and used successfully – for problems in the past. Heaven knows how close she was to breaking by the time they started the jump back “home”.

But this? This is Worst Case Scenario stuff. This is Miles watching Sgt. Bothari getting shot, Kirk standing helplessly as Spock succumbs to radiation poisoning, Capt. Harriman watching that refugee ship get torn apart. If Fusella is still able to function after this, she’ll be going through the motions. This is soul-breaking. I hope there’s someone nearby who can help her put herself back together again…

This is why you train realistically and train some more, and oh, did I mention you need to train?

Because when the effluent impacts the rotary air impeller you’ve got to *MOVE* to not only fix the situation but save as many as you can (and just maybe, yourself).

Also, I’d add that this is Adama and Roslin ordering the ‘Fleet’ to make its first coordinated jump leaving all the non-jump capable ships (and people they didn’t immediately evacuate off of them) behind to die.

Fusella is the CAPTAIN. She can have a breakdown back in her quarters. For now, she needs to do what a captain is supposed to do, what Scavina is doing right now: suck the pain in, put on a brave face, and take charge.

There is a reason I used Kirk as an example here. I think you would agree that Kirk (well, Shatner!Kirk) is a VERY capable captain. A man who turns no-win scenarios into I-win scenarios on a regular basis. Further, Shatner!Kirk is military, so a very similar background to Scavina rather than Fusella.

Yet, in the final conflict in Wrath of Khan, Kirk is every bit as helpless as Fusella is here. He can do nothing but watch the timer run down and pray Scotty can get the engines working again in time. Spock takes the bullet for the team and fixes the engines himself. Kirk’s breakdown happens VERY publically – right there in the engine room as his friend dies. Go watch the scene again – see how Kirk just slumps against the glass, his crew and officers looking on. His confidence and take-charge attitude are noticeably absent.

Now: in your estimation, does Kirk’s breakdown make him no longer fit to command the Enterprise? Or will you give Kirk a pass and Fusella a fail?

1) Kirk, at that moment, couldn’t help the engineering crew. He had far less knowledge than Scotty about engineering, and would actually get in Scotty’s way if he went down anyway. Instead, he showed his trust in his engineer at that moment. When engines were back online, Kirk says ‘Thank You Scotty’, think Scott has fixed the ship, a sensible sentiment, given the many times Scotty did it before. Part of being a good leader IS all about trusting others to do their jobs.

2) The part about the breakdown? Watch the scene again, its preceded by Kirk starting to rush into action to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING, to save Spock. He’s physically restrained by Scott and MCoy, who tell him that.

b) That at this point, Spock has soaked up so much radiation that he’s dead no matter what they do.

In short, in this case, there is nothing he can do. Unlike Fusella, who can comfort her crew and take command of the people milling about. Fusella won’t kill others by acting, and unlike Kirk, there ARE things she can do.

…I know that her crew is like her family and her ship is her home but Come on Fusella! They need you to take command not stand there and watch in shock. You are better captain than that, you knew there was explosion in engineering.

… as every comment above me pointed out. I really should read them before I comment. I do hope though that Fusella will pull her weight soon, but I was hoping for Captain and General to tag team the problem with some unexpectedly smooth cooperation.

A nice contrast between the two’s backgrounds. For a minute I read the sequence happening faster than it does, and thought she might just be seeing something Scavina isn’t, but I think it’s kind of the reverse. General Nelson is able to filter out the unimportant carnage and see what needs to be done; Fusella sees all of it and it’s just too much. I don’t particularly blame Fusella, this is the general’s forte after all.

I read it differently. The team in Engineering have had several minutes to cope with the situation. The General has just waded in, without getting fully appraised of the situation. In particular, why would she want cutting equipment and a full helmet: surely she should be delegating the cutting job to someone else? Fusella looks like she’s seen something that she doesn’t believe. Do we get a pull-back shot next week to show the damage? It is also the case that the General is definitely in charge. Fusella has been a bit of a spare wheel since Page 4 when she officially handed command over to the General. If the General is taking command here, Fusella has no role.

To everyone being hard on Fusella here, keep in mind this is the first time she’s been in a situation like this. Statistically speaking, even highly trained soldiers are very likely to freeze up the first time they are in combat. People generally don’t react well to violence and mayhem outside of video games and movies. That’s one reason why the general is able to act immediately – this isn’t the first time she’s been in a situation like this, so she can skip the necessary mental coping process and get to work.

I agree that Fusella needs to “suck it up and deal”, but be aware that it’s a lot easier for us to say that while sitting here in our nice cozy chairs. Actually doing it is one of the hardest challenges a person can face.

Yes, I think it also makes a difference whether the situation is something you have trained and prepared for or something that comes as a totally unexpected shock. It’s the latter kind where people pack up and stop functioning. I think Fusella is gaining a bit of respect for the general here. This page is really highlighting the difference in their immediate reactions, so Fu’s next action may well be to jump in and say “What can I do to help”. Also, I predict Alex is about to turn up.

So the first time the engine would have encountered critical damage (which could have happened before this whole mission, honestly) would be to freeze?

This isn’t combat. Nobody’s shooting at her. As for freezing, she’s been freezing long enough that Scavina has had time to go from right next to Fusella, asking questions, getting updates, giving orders, until Fusella is far at the back. We’re talking about several minutes of freezing here. A soldier who freezes that long is dead.

This being her first time doesn’t change the fact that she’s the captain, that she’s standing there doing nothing while everyone else seems to be doing something, and has been doing for quite a while by the end of the page. Dear God, an exploration officer who’s job it is to go into deep space and chart planets can’t deal with a crisis?!?

I once helped people out of rubble, honestly, and I didn’t freeze, so I’ll say: those who are hard on Fusella are right. Standing still helps nothing and nobody.

It doesn’t matter if it’s combat or not. The overwhelming majority of people freeze up for several seconds the first time they encounter a sudden, violent situation – even with training. I used soldiers as an example because they receive extensive training to prevent them from freezing up, but it still happens anyways. People who don’t freeze the first time are extremely rare (congratulations if you’re one of them), especially if their training was more on “how to catalog a planet” and not “how to deal with an experimental drive blowing up and maiming a bunch of your friends and coworkers”.

Also, I disagree with you on the timescale. The area is in chaos and people are moving fast. The action is continuous, and the only thing we’re missing is the engineer’s reply to the general’s question (which was a simple yes/no question, so I doubt the answer took much time). It hasn’t been several minutes, it’s been several seconds, tops.

I think next comic will reveal a lot – if Fusella is still frozen, then we’ve got a problem. But I’m betting she starts moving.

This is starting to sound as if you’re making excuses for her bahaviour. Even ten seconds is too much for a captain to freeze. And its, I’m sorry to say, at least a minute or two. She’s in shock around her crew, which is the last thing the crew needs to see. She’s being useless.

Haha–I’m enjoying reading the debate. I have to say I think you are all taking this one panel out of context. We need to see the entire scene before it is assessed. I tend to think that it has taken a few seconds at most, but we shall see. Regardless, from the moment things went wrong, the General has taken control and Fusella has not contested that. She has been a subordinate from that point. People who command should have the gut reaction of stepping forward and commanding. People who are being commanded by them should follow orders. Anyone else should stay out of the way. If both Fusella and the General were running around giving orders, they could be giving cross orders, which would be very detrimental. Also, engineering clearly is acting. Fusella really has been given the luxury to actually freeze and freak out. She is a human so that is what she is doing.
Admittedly, she needs to stop freezing very shortly. It will be bad for the morale otherwise. (I do think a mild freeze won’t hurt morale–it verifies that the situation is as bad as they already know. It always makes me feel better when my bosses do that–my job is not remotely life-threatening admittedly.)

I have to disagree with those who are characterizing Scavina’s response as that of a ‘leader’. She is most assuredly *not* showing good leadership here. She’s angry, yelling, wide-eyed – she doesn’t appear to be organizing the response or even taking stock of the full situation – it looks like she’s micromanaging and going after a personal objective.

In an emergency situation like this, it’s the line officers’ responsibility to get personell to react rationally and calmly. To marshall resources and enact existing emergency response protocols (and modify them based on emergent conditions).

So yes, I agree that Fusella needs to wake up. But Scavia also needs to take a step back from her tunnel vision and protect her crew (and yes, they are *her* crew until she relinquishes command). Until she does that she’s being a poor excuse for a brigadier general (aka rear admiral, as anything called ‘Interpanetary Patrol’ should really be using naval rankings (yes, I know – another rant another time)).

Scavina flags down the ranking engineer. Her next question seems big-picture enough: “Tell me the extent of the damages. Are we still volatile?” While we don’t get details here, the command is sensible: the ship has lost a LOT of power, and for all Scavina and Fusella know, it could lose the rest any minute. Or things could be building up to a second BOOM. Or things could be stable and its now a question of getting to any trapped wounded before mopping up and starting repairs.

Since the big focus in this page is Fusella’s shock, we don’t hear the Asst. Chief’s response. Thus we’re left with no real context for Scavina’s actions in the next panel. I read her dialogue as “– and I can get it done.” This suggests to me that the Asst. Chief mentioned some critical task that s/he doesn’t have the manpower for and Scavina is throwing herself into it.

This being a comic, we don’t hear tone of voice, the overall noise level of the engine room (are people screaming in pain or yelling instructions or queries? Are their alarms blaring? What other noise is being generated?) Even if everyone is calm and collected, I doubt it’s quiet enough for them to talk as though they’re at Sunday Dinner.

On a general note, I’ve noticed people come down hard on both Scavina and Fusella in these situations, especially this chapter and last. I personally wonder if this is more due to their gender than their actions. Put another way, if Scavina and Fusella had been men, would their actions be judged as harshly? I’ve already noted that Capt. Kirk has been in Fusella’s shoes at least once, and I’m pretty sure he’s been in Scavina’s shoes more than a few times (the crisis situation at the start of Star Trek: Generations comes readily to mind) – and nobody thinks HE’s a bad leader.

1- Getting the person in charge and asking for status report
2- Getting into the thick of the action and by that bringing a sense of order into the chaos

Is her being a ‘poor excuse for a general’.

Her eyes seem intent, not wide-eyed.

I don’t see exclamation points, except for the last order (which is likely to make what she needs clear to whoever she’s talking to), so she’s clearly not angry, and certainly NOT yelling.

Her asking for a status report IS taking stock of the situation.

I don’t see how helping out at what might be a task that needs to be done ASAP (freeing some hands) isn’t micromanagement or a personal objective. Its something that needs to be done.

Leaders need to pitch in at times in such situations, and her going about getting information and seemingly organizing something like this is the signs of a great leader, someone who shows she’s in charge. And in these cases, people need to see someone being in charge.

A fair number of commenters seem to want Fusella to “pull herself together” and take charge. I’m not sure that would be the wisest course of action. It seems to me that in an emergency adding another commander is probably a mistake unless the two have discussed things in advance to ensure common direction and alignment and likely to increase rather than reduce confusion. Fusella will certainly want to pitch in, but I’m not sure taking charge is the most productive way to do so.

Fusella is a people person… she is stunned by all of the injured. She sees need for medical care first and the damage second. The general on the other hand ignores the injured and is working to get the mechanics back up and running. What we have is two different styles of command.
General = mission at all costs. Military mentality. The crew are ‘soldiers’ and casualties are expected and therefore a minor detail to the mission.
Fusella = safety and well being of the people involved in the mission first. Civilian Mentality. The crew are ‘persons’ friends even. One casualty is too many.

This ship should have been manned by all military personnel it the mission was of military importance.

Civilian Captains take charge of disasters just as well as Military Captains. Her ‘civilian’ status is NOT an excuse.

There is no indication that Scavina is ‘ignoring the injured’. She can see they’re already being cared for and helped by other crew, and she is NOT a medic. Don’t make her colder than she is by saying she sees injured people as a trifle, that doesn’t fit her character at all. Military doesn’t mean heartless.

Fusella, love her though I do, demonstrates once again that she has no business being the Captain of a spacecraft. Civilian or Military, it doesn’t matter. You’re supposed to train for casualties. When the SHTF, you fall back on your training, and you’d be surprised how unconsciously you do this if you’re well trained – I know this firsthand in a shipboard environment. This should not be Fu’s first rodeo as a Captain, but you’d never know it by this scene.

A moment’s shock and horror, and then what do I need to do right now to save my ship and crew? not this shell-shocked numbness.

True, but it does not seem to be the sight of the “casualties” that has shocked her. She’s looking at something else. I agree that she’s been very still, but it could be that there’s something in that room that nothing in her training prepared her for. (something that may be a a greater danger than the immediate chaos around her)

That’s about the only thing that is going to save her … if not only from her crew totally losing confidence in her as a *Captain* (and worse, *their* Captain) but also from the TerSA Board of Review that’s coming

I think Scavina and Fusella live in two entirely different worlds now (and probably all the time): Scavina tries to solve any situation with perseverance and can-do spirit. She wanted to find the Hiawatha, and since they found it, she probably regards the situation as enough of a success that she would do it all again if given the chance.

Fusella on the other hand sees Scavina as someone who took away her command, took apart her ship to add a hyperdrive with a history of exploding, led everyone on a wild goose chase, got everyone lost in a different universe, got her crewmembers and friends wounded, and finally drove her ship near explosion again. And she knows Scavina – the person with all the power – would do it all again. I think Fusella could handle an engineering desaster with wounded crewmembers – but she can’t handle Scavina.

Who is right? Currently it may be Scavina, who’s trying to get everything repaired as quickly as possible, since that would be better for the crew right now. But if Fusella had remained in charge and had prevented the experiment, nearly everyone would be better off.

There’s been a lot of Fusella-bashing going on in this comments section, and while she may very well be frozen from shock, judging by the fact that she seems to be looking over everyone’s heads and not at the wounded, I think it’s more likely that the focus on her stillness is a storytelling technique to show that she’s noticed something that no-one else has, and is trying to figure out how to deal with it. You can say she’s taking too long, that she’s not a proper soldier, whatever you want, but I think her reaction is very indicative of a plot-point about to be revealed. Anyway, if it was the sight of everyone injured that was making her freeze, why does it seem as though she is looking over them rather than at them? It could be that she’s located the source of the real problem, a problem that no-one else is paying attention to. Jumping in and shouting is a good way to solve some problems, but rushing can also make a bad situation worse. I’m withholding judgment of the characters until I see how this all plays out.

In the next panel, she is moving forward, still intent on whatever she was looking at before. In the second panel, still looking in that direction, she is distracted by Ewan. She responds to him quite well and properly, NOT sounding at all helpless and freaked out. Just because we haven’t yet been smacked in the eyeballs by the image of what had her attention does not mean it doesn’t exist.

That’s called building suspense. It’s a pretty basic aspect of storytelling and why you never judge anything on the content of one page.

Great page. Very clever and very emotional. Damn this comic keeps giving, doesnt it?
About leadership: yes Fuzella could should be acting but then we wouldnt get to see her… soul?
And in her defence it is her crew that is acting rather well, her love that molded them.

While the quality of the respective leadership demonstrated by Fusella vs. Scavina is obviously debatable, there can be little doubt that the intense discussion itself highlights the great quality of your storytelling.

While you sometimes take licence with plausible protocols, you capture the essence of military leadership and decision making in unexpected critical situations very well. Similar to the way you show interactions among or between military and civilian crew, engineering, science, medical, administrative, etc.

You put the Life and the Love in Hyperspace without taking away either the Hyper or the Space!